2017 Project 52, First Quarter by Joe/ Joebranko

[joebranko]

beautiful images and, yes, #3 is the best, others are just behind

Thanks Nandakumar.

[joebranko]

With the first one, Joe, I find that sapling in the foreground is disturbing the sweep of branches from the larger tree. I suspect you either have to cut down the sapling or find another angle to get this scene working well.

Thanks Geoff. Cutting the sapling is not permitted in this park. I took a few more shots and will look at them to see where the sapling is in them. Thanks for this suggestion. If I find a better perspective I will post it.

Found a better perspective but the upload failed several times. Is there a problem with the site? I will try again in the morning.

I decided to try Flickr.

I understand it is possible to add the image through Flickr.

Thanks Robin. This worked well.

[skitterbug]

Today with the leaves all gone, the light more colourful and the tree structure more evident, I took another 'shot' at it. I think it is better. However I think it would have been better still had I used my wide angle lens.

Hi Joe ~

#1 - I wonder what the shot would look like using the wide angle lens? Maybe come at it from the base of the tree rather than directly toward it? It is a beautiful tree! Makes me want to try climbing on it!

#2 is intriguing because I can imagine myself walking along the edge and enjoying the quiet time.

#3 is well done but since the water isn't stirring and there isn't any wildlife, it isn't as interesting to me.

But all three are crisp and clear! And apparently cold! You present the conditions nicely through your camera work!

[joebranko]

Hi Joe ~

#1 - I wonder what the shot would look like using the wide angle lens? Maybe come at it from the base of the tree rather than directly toward it? It is a beautiful tree! Makes me want to try climbing on it!

Thanks Sandy. I hope I can get a nice day to return to this tree.

[Cantab]

With the first one, Joe, I find that sapling in the foreground is disturbing the sweep of branches from the larger tree. I suspect you either have to cut down the sapling or find another angle to get this scene working well.

Joe, I agree with Geoff. Do you have an axe?

I really like the second image, probably because of the sweeping curve of the beach and maybe also the foreground interest of the large rocks.

[Geoff F]

Tinypics is giving problems, Joe. See this thread,

TinyPic

[joebranko]

Tinypics is giving problems, Joe. See this thread,

TinyPic

Thanks Geoff. Hope its fixed soon.

[Craigie]

A real nice series, Joe. #2 is my fav, I like how the shore line sweeps round in the image.

[joebranko]

A real nice series, Joe. #2 is my fav, I like how the shore line sweeps round in the image.

Thanks Gary.

[joebranko]

I was in a rush to get home when I took this pic. So much so that I forgot to check my setting of white balance which was at flash setting. Of course the colours were all wrong and try as I may I could not properly correct it. I decided to convert to mono and to try B&W preset which I had never done before.

[joebranko]

At LaSalle Park there are normally a huge bevy of swans on the edge of the bay. These are normally swans that are fed and taken care of by a group of local bird lovers and are normally tagged for identification. Yesterday there were two or three untagged swan enjoying the good weather.

I took about 50 shots. When I came home to look at them I found that half of them were blurred. I am still trying to trouble-shoot why this happened. The usual suspects, exposure time, auto focus all seem ok. Since this happened to so many shots I doubt it was operator error. Also, many but not all of the blurred shots happened at 250mm the longest focal length of the lens.

These were ok.
PS. When I started shooting I had set my camera to Tv, which I hardly ever use. I wanted a fast exposure in case a swan took off I could capture the movement without blur! I switched back to 'Manual' after maybe 15 or so shots.

1: ISO 200; 55mm;f6.3;1/250"



2 ISO200, 135mm, f3.6, 1/250"



3. ISO 200; 90mm; f6.3; 1/640




This is one of the blurred images.

4. ISO 400; 250mm; f8; 1/800

[Shadowman]

Nice efforts, 1 and 3 look good.

[joebranko]

Nice efforts, 1 and 3 look good.

Thanks John. I have replaced #2 with another shot. #2 looked too similar to #3. Now it's a little different.

[skitterbug]

I agree with John - #1 and #3 are the best of the group. #2 swan is just a tiny bit out of focus and of course as you pointed out #4 is definitely blurred. One other thing about #1 that would make it even better to me is more space in front of the swan rather than behind it. But that is strictly my choice of display. And I'm just learning too so take my opinion with a grain of salt! <grin>

[joebranko]

One other thing about #1 that would make it even better to me is more space in front of the swan rather than behind it. But that is strictly my choice of display. And I'm just learning too so take my opinion with a grain of salt! <grin>

Thanks Sandy. I'll have another look to see if there is more room in front, or if I did not compose it properly.
Ive looked and there was no more room, so I'm stuck with this composition. Some software allow you to "add canvass", but not Lightroom.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Joe #1 and #3 for me. I would reduce the highlights in the very bright feathers for more detail. If you have no more space in the front of swan in #1, you might as well crop the image from the RHS to make a square crop

[joebranko]

Hi Joe #1 and #3 for me. I would reduce the highlights in the very bright feathers for more detail. If you have no more space in the front of swan in #1, you might as well crop the image from the RHS to make a square crop

Thanks Binnur. That's a good idea.

Here is the revised crop:-

[Geoff F]

A pity that you didn't have a little more space in front of the bird when you shot but the closer all round crop certainly looks better than the original to me.

[skitterbug]

I like your edited pic with the square crop! Looks great!

[Cantab]

Joe, I really like your revised crop in post 77. The swan is tack sharp. It's too bad there wasn't more space around the bird in the original capture so that you'd have had some leeway to adjust things in pp. But we've all been there. At least I have!

I had a look at the original photos that were blurred to see if I could figure out what had gone wrong. I could see nothing obvious, particularly since photo #4 was taken at 1/800, which presumably should have eliminated any motion blur.

Is your auto focus set to use the centre point or does the camera have the discretion to choose whatever focus point it wants?

Although I usually use manual for all settings, I've recently become a convert to using auto ISO in some situations. This allows you to fix the shutter speed as well as the aperture so that the camera has no opportunities to mess around with these often critical settings. The downside is that Canon, unlike Nikon, does not allow one to use exposure compensation when relying on the auto ISO. And I see from the EXIF data that you use a Canon, as I do.